Okay, here are some office humor cliches–those things people say in response to typical office situations even though they know they’re not worth saying. And, assuming you don’t mind, we propose new cliches to take their place.

When Ted walks into the breakroom where you’re having a conversation with someone else:

OLD: “Right, Ted? Ha! Ha!” or “It’s Ted’s fault! Ha! Ha!”

NEW: “Hey uh…Ted.”

When grabbing a doughnut on free doughnut day:

OLD: “This is one of the ones with no calories, right? Ha! Ha!”

NEW: “I’ll eat this, I guess, but I know I’ll get this total sugar crash and get so depressed. Especially on a day like this, with all this fucking rain, pardon my French. I don’t even really like doughnuts; they’re too sweet. But…I don’t know…”

When you walk into the breakroom and a bunch of your coworkers are laughing at something they were talking about:

OLD: “You guys are having too much fun! Ha! Ha!” or “No laughing allowed! Ha! Ha!”

NEW: Ask what’s so funny and, after one of the nicer of the group takes the effort to repeat the whole dialogue, kind of shrug and say, “Guess you had to be there.”

When you have to do something like get a ream of paper, tear it open, and load it in the copier:

OLD: “Well, that’s my workout for the day! Ha! Ha!”

NEW: “It seems like everytime I use this fucking thing, pardon my French, I have to load some fucking paper in it, pardon my French.”

When out at lunch, getting burgers with coworkers, and it’s taking a slightly long time for the food to come out:

OLD: “What are they doing? Killing the cow? Ha! Ha!”

NEW: “I have so much work to do today. Ugh! Can’t stand that place.”

Whenever someone does anything that you may not have any other quick cliche response to:

OLD: “That was like on, uh, that one episode of ‘Seinfeld’! Ha! Ha!” For example, if a lizard falls from the ceiling tiles onto a monkey that someone brought into the office for some reason, refer to when Kramer did that and George gripes about when people talk to him in the bathroom, etc., because, believe us, there is an episode you can somehow match to anything that happens in life.

NEW: (Silence)

SECRETARY
How was your weekend, Mr. Prime Minister?

WINSTON CHURCHILL
Too short.

THE STORIED CHURCHILL witty comeback above is just one example of the countless “zingers” that helped lift British spirits during the German bombings and two other major events that would round out a nice list of three.

Office humor cliches have survived because they bolster the office environment’s blatant insincerity and tedium. However, we need new office humor cliches that even better capture the essence of the singularly soul-crushing modern office. Try these!

Upon running into someone for a second or third time that day:

OLD: “Hey! We gotta stop meeting like this!”
NEW: “When I saw you last, I asked you to put together that spreadsheet. I haven’t gotten it yet, and that’s unacceptable. Get it done.”

Seeing someone microwaving their lunch:

OLD: “Hey! What are you making me?”

NEW: “How much more time on this? I have stuff to microwave too.”

Walking past a temp filling in for Kathy for the day:

OLD: “Kathy, you look different today!”

NEW: “Oh, good! Another temp we have to spend most of the day training and who, for what’s left of the day, will do everything a little wrong and leave us worse off than if we had just done nothing until Kathy got back!”

Greeting the counterperson in the corporate cafeteria:

OLD: “Hey! You must have been up all night making this food, huh?”

NEW: “Some of that I guess.” (Point at the food you want.)

Leaving the office:

OLD: “Mañana!”

NEW: Silence.